


Anything

by babybrotherdean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (except a horrible not-that version), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Episode: s09e01 I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here, Gen, Guilty Dean, Healing Sex, Hurt Sam, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 13:27:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7978333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybrotherdean/pseuds/babybrotherdean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anything is better than Sam dying. <i>Anything.</i></p>
<p>That's what Dean tries to tell himself, anyways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything

**Author's Note:**

> ...I don't know.
> 
> Read the warnings. Tread with caution.

“You’re fucking with me.”

An unfortunate choice of words, maybe, but silence is his only answer. Dean stares, and he stares, and he feels like he’s going to be sick.

“You’re… not fucking with me.”

Ezekiel’s expression doesn’t change, and the pit in Dean’s stomach grows deeper. “It is the only way to heal your brother, Dean. A complete melding of both the soul and the physical body will allow me to-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Dean cuts him off because he doesn’t think he can bear to hear it a second time. They’re still in the damn hotel room, but they’re running out of time; God knows how many angels are closing in on the building as they speak, and Sam needs help if he’s going to make it much longer. The sigils will hold for a time, but Dean suspects that the human doctors won’t let those deter them. “Cut to the chase.”

A slight knitting of the angel’s brow is the only indication of his confusion. “I have told you all there is to know. If I do not heal your brother, and you do not find another angel to do the same, then he will die. I came here because I want to help. My brothers and sisters will not likely be as generous.”

It should sound haughty, but there’s a grave sort of solemnity to Ezekiel that negates it. Dean’s just left with that empty, tight feeling in his stomach that tells him he has no more options.

Sam looks small in the hotel bed. Impossibly small next to the machines keeping him alive, all pale-skinned and bruised where it hurts. Dean swallows hard as he watches his little brother quietly fight for his life, and he doesn’t look at Ezekiel when he speaks. Can’t tear his eyes away from Sam.

“Not here.”

The angels outside are breaking down doors. Humans are shouting, panicked and afraid.

They move.

-

Sam is still unconscious when they finally make it home, and as wrong as it feels to allow a stranger into the bunker- an angel, at that- Dean knows it’s the only way. Still, he insists on carrying his little brother all by himself, even if Sam’s long past the size of being easy to haul around and Dean’s shoulders are screaming by the time they make it to one of the guest rooms.

He doesn’t take Ezekiel to either of their bedrooms. There’s only so far he’ll allow this to go.

“I will be… careful,” Ezekiel says, breaking the too-long silence that’s been hanging between them. Dean ignores him because it’s the only way he’ll be able to hang onto his sanity past this point. He just focuses on his brother for now; on taking those last few steps towards the bed until he’s able to lay Sam down. He doesn’t look much better than he did in the hospital, and Dean struggles to look away. It feels like a moment too long will leave him glancing back to find that Sam’s stopped breathing altogether.

“This is the only way?” he asks, eyes hard where Sam’s chest rises and falls, faint and weakening. “There ain’t some back-alley loophole you’re not tellin’ me about?”

“I’m sorry, Dean.” Ezekiel hasn’t moved from his spot by the door, but he might as well be whispering them right into Dean’s ear for how deep they sink. “His wounds are too severe. His soul has been damaged, and there is no other way to repair that damage.”

Dean squeezes his eyes shut as if Sam’s near-lifeless body isn’t already burned into the backs of his eyelids. He forces himself to take a deep breath and weigh his options.

Then again, _Sam dies_ was never really an option to begin with.

He doesn’t look, and he can barely force the words from his lips. His eyes are closed and he’s trembling. Whispers. 

“Do it.”

The angel stays quiet, but there’s the distinct rustling of clothes and the creak of floorboards as he approaches the bed. A moment of hesitation, and he speaks again, soft. Closer to Dean.

“You can… stay, if you feel it necessary.”

As if there was ever another way for this to go.

Dean forces himself to open his eyes by the time the bed’s springs squeak with added weight. No matter how bad it’s going to ruin him to watch this- to watch his brother violated in the more carnal way- there’s no speaking for how much it will hurt Sam. He can only pray that his brother will have no memory of this, because if he does-

Dean’s been forgiven for a lot of shit that should’ve marked him irredeemable, but he doesn’t doubt for a moment that he’d never see Sam again if this goes the wrong way. He convinces himself, once again, that it’s better than Sam being dead. Anything is better than that.

_Anything_ , he tells himself a million times in the space of time it takes Ezekiel to open up Sam’s hospital gown and expose him to the room’s cold light. He’s too skinny, and his ribs are bruised, and he’s soft and vulnerable and small and.

Anything. Anything is better. _Anything._

Dean’s not sure whether it’s better or worse, seeing the clinical way Ezekiel goes about it. Gets his own clothes out of the way efficiently, no passion lost between them; it’s a job to him, a procedure, and Dean thinks maybe he’s going to throw up by the time this is over.

He doesn’t know where Ezekiel got the oil he produces- looks like it might’ve been lifted from the hospital, in hindsight- but a tiny part of him is thankful. Dean’s eyes drift up to his brother’s face because it’s the only spot he can bear to look at, knowing what’s happening down below. Sam’s out cold; his expression doesn’t change once even with the unmistakable squelch of lube as Ezekiel begins. At least he isn’t in pain.

Anything. Anything, anything, _anything._

Minutes pass. Maybe hours; maybe years. There’s the liquid sound of Ezekiel’s fingers and there’s Sam’s face, and there’s Dean, a silent observer to something that shouldn’t be happening in the first place. There’s the angel blade that sits heavy inside his jacket, tucked away where it always is, these days, because everyone is an enemy and there’s no such thing as being too prepared.

An angel is violating his brother and Dean tries. He tries so _damn_ hard to tell himself that this is the only thing they can do. The only choice he can make for things to be okay again, and.

And then he decides that _nothing_ is okay about this. That anything is a better choice than Sam dying- anything but. But _this_.

There’s no thought in the space between his hand and the blade’s hilt. Ezekiel’s silent and he’s barely moved forward for the tip of his vessel’s cock to find Sam the way it’s supposed to, and. 

And he dies quietly, too. Quiet as angels ever do. The blade goes in and light spills out, and Dean doesn’t close his eyes because he needs to watch. It doesn’t last long, and then the angel is dead and he and Sam are.

Alone.

So fucking alone.

-

Sam wakes slowly to the purr of the only engine he’s ever known and a headache so immense that he’s sure his head is going to split in two. He’s groggy and disoriented, fingers curling uselessly in his lap as he struggles to open his eyes. All he can remember is trying to finish up that last trial, talking with Crowley and then- Dean, and-

And nothing else. He doesn’t know where he is.

“Dean?” he mumbles anyways, because he knows the passenger’s seat better than he knows his own mind and there’s no question that his brother is opposite him. He doesn’t get a response, but he does manage to force his eyes open only to be left squinting in the light of a vibrant, bloody sunset. He finds Dean right where he belongs, all hard lines and sharp edges and a bittersweet sort of look on his face. “S’wrong? Where are we?”

Dean looks at him eventually, one hand on the steering wheel and the other loose on the seat between them. For a long moment, they’re both silent, and Dean just looks at him. Doesn’t explain why Sam feels like he’s physically coming apart at the seams, or why his heart is beating too fast or where they’re going or what happened. He just- he just _looks_ , and then he’s smiling again, so profoundly sad in the expression that Sam doesn’t have a damn thing to say.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, Sammy. We’re goin’ home.”

There’s a heaviness to the words for which Sam has no explanation, so he stays quiet and doesn’t resist when Dean’s hand finds his. It’s a sort of comfort that he hasn’t had since childhood and it quiets the pain, just a little bit.

He doesn’t know where they’re going, or why his body feels like it’s slowly shutting down. He doesn’t ask, either, because he trusts his big brother and he knows that whatever else happens, Dean’s going to do his best to make things okay. It’s a knowledge he’s been secure in since the day their house burned to the ground, and nothing has changed since then. Nothing so vital as his brother’s devotion to keeping him safe.

Safety takes them right through a steel guardrail and comes with a fifty-foot drop into the ocean. The water’s pretty with the last lingering fingers of daylight, and even as it starts to fill the car, Dean’s hand clutching tightly at Sam’s keeps him warm.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Dean whispers, and Sam feels like sleep is calling him all over again. “Gonna be okay, little brother.”

_Home_ was always by his brother’s side, anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry?


End file.
